The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

America – Worse Than Europe on Islam?

by Bruce Bawer

It seems long ago. When I wrote my 2006 book While Europe Slept, I
was confident that America was all but immune to the forces that were
bringing Europe down. In the book, I spoke of “a philosophical gulf”
between Europe and the U.S. that “sometimes seemed as wide as the
Atlantic itself.” It was Europe that had appeased and buckled under to
Hitler in the name of peace; it was Americans who had crossed the ocean
to crush him in the name of freedom. On some level, Europeans still
thought like serfs, viewing the state as their protector; in America,
every man was a king, and the government worked for us. Europeans
wouldn’t give up their long vacations for anything; Americans didn’t
mind putting in long hours in order to get ahead. Europeans, seduced by
multiculturalism, thought of themselves and others as members of groups;
Americans saw everybody as an individual with inalienable rights to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Europeans cherished their
welfare states; Americans, their freedom.

As for Islam, Europe gave its Muslim newcomers everything, asked
nothing, and encouraged and even welcomed separatist enclaves in which
their so-called “new countrymen” could remain outsiders forever, in
return for which the Europeans fully expected a lifetime supply of
loving gratitude; the U.S., for its part, believed firmly in
integration, for which it had always had a special gift, demanding that
newcomers work, obey the law, learn the language, and respect the
country’s founding values, and in return genuinely viewed them as
authentic Americans – as, indeed, did the newcomers themselves.

As I say, it seems long ago. I’ve long since come to
understand that most of those quaint distinctions just don’t hold
anymore. Saudi-funded American “experts” on the Middle East and their
allies in the American media have spread pretty lies about Islam
throughout American society. Some of America’s most influential legal
minds argue tirelessly for the acceptance of sharia in American
jurisprudence and for the watering down of the First Amendment where
speech about Islam is concerned. The State Department is run by people
who have been lying to themselves for years about Islam, the Muslim
Brotherhood, you name it, and who are eager to come to some
accommodation with the Islamic world on the question of what Americans
should and should not be allowed to say about the religion of peace.
Top-level figures in the U.S. military preferred to treat the Fort Hood
jihadist as a psychiatric case. The so-called Department of Homeland
Security is in the hands of people all too many of whom would like to
pretend, if at all possible, that acts of terror committed on American
soil are just ordinary crimes. From Hollywood to Broadway, from the art
galleries to the news media, self-censorship about Islam rules the day.
In short, America is at least as susceptible as Europe to the steady
accumulation of Islamic power.

As I say, I arrived at this recognition some years ago, and it is, in fact, the theme of my 2009 book Surrender. Nonetheless, I experienced something not unlike a revelation about these matters when I interviewed the
heroic Ayaan Hirsi Ali onstage a couple of weeks ago at David
Horowitz’s Restoration Weekend. As most Front Page readers are doubtless
well aware, Ayaan was born in Somalia, raised as an ardent Muslim there
and in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, secured political asylum in
the Netherlands in 1992, lost her faith on 9/11, was elected in 2003 to
the Dutch Parliament, and in that position became a staggeringly
eloquent, brave, and highly admired critic of Islam – only to relocate
to America in 2006 after certain government colleagues, perturbed by her
“polarizing” views, basically forced her out. In the U.S., Ayaan, who
now has several important and bestselling books under her belt, became
not only a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute but a wife and
mother – and an indefatigable and inspiring public speaker whose
invaluable insights about Islam are welcomed by audiences around the
country and the world. I was honored to be asked to interview her in
front of the sizable and enthusiastic crowd that turned up to hear her
in Palm Beach.

As always, Ayaan had many valuable things to say that afternoon. But
what especially struck me were her answers to my questions about America
and Europe. When she first came to America, she told me, she was
overwhelmed by the generous reception she received from the mainstream
media, as compared to the condescension with which Dutch journalists so
often treated her: she was interviewed on CNN and 60 Minutes, got a
positive review in the New York Times, appeared on Bill Maher. Her
initial impression was that in America, “the sun shines every day when
it comes to shedding light on Islam.”

She now, alas, sees things very differently. “You’re not supposed to
use the word jihad….The United States of America does not recognize
Islamic terrorism. It’s called ‘violent extremism.’ That is worse than
Europe – any country in Europe.” In Europe, she noted, there’s at least
“some form of recognition” on the part of officials that terrorist acts
are connected in some way to Islam; American leaders, however, prefer
the most absurd kind of euphemism. “’Violent extremism’ is the biggest
joke of the twenty-first century,” she charged. “The biggest semantic –
the most cynical joke of the twenty-first century.” For Ayaan, all this
is beyond lamentable, for back when she was living in the Netherlands,
America was “the example” for her and others who cherished liberty. It’s
for this reason, she said, that it’s so distressing “to see the
developments here” in recent years. If America isn’t going to be America
any more, she wondered, where is there for freedom-loving people to go?To be sure, Ayaan insisted on the continuing reality of “American
exceptionalism.” The problem, she lamented, is that too many Americans
(President Obama among them) fail to recognize the specialness of
America – of what it is, and of what it has given the world. Even after
living in the West for two decades, Ayaan said, she’s still awed by all
the little day-to-day things that make up a free life. The problem is
that most Americans take all those little things for granted. They
simply can’t “perceive possession of these basic freedoms as something
that can be taken away from then.” They don’t realize that their
freedom, historically speaking, is an “anomaly”; they don’t understand
that it can “evaporate” – and fast.

Ayaan compared the gradual decline in Americans’ appreciation for
freedom to the decay that a family business can undergo over, say, four
generations (one thought immediately, of course, of Thomas Mann’s
novel Buddenbrooks), as the industrious founders are succeeded in turn
by increasingly decadent and indifferent descendants who are used to the
money rolling in. Those who reject the idea of “American
exceptionalism,” Ayaan pronounced, are, by doing so, simply identifying
themselves as members of that fourth generation – as, that is, the
decadent and undeserving heirs of a precious legacy that they didn’t
earn, don’t value, and are unwilling to take risks, make sacrifices, or
exert themselves to preserve for their progeny.

Ayaan recalled people she’d known in Somalia and Ethiopia who, out of
fear, had only discussed ticklish matters “behind closed doors” with
those whom they fully trusted. In the Netherlands, she was dismayed to
watch the very Dutchmen who’d taught her the ABCs of freedom morphing
into versions of her acquaintances in the Horn of Africa, scared to
breathe a word about Islam lest their careers be endangered. And then
she moved to Washington, D.C., the capital of the free world and, she
thought, the world’s last, best hope (not to mention the final stop on
her long pilgrimage) – only to catch some of her colleagues there
behaving in exactly the same dispiriting way: “You wait until someone
you suspect of reporting you goes out of the room and then you have your
honest conversation. Essentially these are no longer open societies.”

Ayaan’s message to America was clear: “We’re deteriorating. We’re
becoming like the rest of the world, instead of the rest of the world
becoming like us.” A sobering thought. But the words I haven’t quite
been able to get out of my mind since our interview are the ones about
America’s refusal to “recognize Islamic terrorism” – namely, Ayaan’s
flat statement that our leaders’ failure to face the simple truth makes
America “worse than Europe – any country in Europe.” When, in the last
year of the last century, I first encountered Muslim enclaves in
Amsterdam and saw the whole future nightmare of Europe unfolding in my
mind’s eye, I never imagined I’d be hearing such words about America –
and nodding in dour agreement.Bruce Bawer Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/america-worse-than-europe-on-islam/Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.